Taking A Sick Day
by MyNoseAgreesWithMe
Summary: You know all those retellings of XYZ Episode 22? Yeah. I did the thing. Set within my "Tuesday-verse" crossover AU, but contains enough backstory (and few enough crossover elements) to be read as a standalone. Takes place in between "Just Another Tuesday" and "Something to Do On the Weekend." Aura!Ash, Psychic!Serena. Oneshot.


**"In a scenario that has been portrayed countless times by fan writers, our heroes have camped out by a river on the way to Snowbelle City – where Ash's final Gym Battle awaits him. As always, he is taking the time to train with his Greninja; an act which tonight leaves Serena concerned about his health…"**

"Are you really sure you should be just standing in the river like that this late at night?" the Performer asked her boyfriend worriedly. "I know you figured out how to consciously boost your immune system and all, but there's still a chance you could catch a cold!"

Ash declined to respond, having narrowed his focus to the special bond that allowed for Greninja's odd transformation. In an odd reversal of the usual arrangement, Ash-Greninja (as Bonnie had called that form) was standing on the bank as if he was the Trainer, while Ash himself was facing off against Pikachu. Ash's longtime partner was leaping from rock to rock, launching Iron Tails, Electro Balls, and Thunderbolts in a seemingly erratic pattern.

It was only when one viewed the scene from above that the pattern's true purpose was revealed. Amidst the barrage, there was a network of slowly shifting safe spots that Pikachu's opponent could take shelter in – and they were slowly converging towards the same location, corralling the enemy into the path of an unavoidable attack. Greninja knew this, having been there when Ash explained the technique to Pikachu back in the world of Sword Art Online, and he was executing his own series of moves from his position over on the bank that would allow Ash to counter Pikachu's strategy.

He was not actually aiming for any of Pikachu's attacks, though; instead, his movements were being transmitted across the Bond, causing Ash himself to perfectly copy Greninja's counters. Shurikens formed of Water-infused energy affected the conductivity of the air, sending Electric attacks off course. Blades of Darkness and of un-Typed potential deflected impacts backed by the strength of steel. And speed was matched by speed, not even a Quick Attack enough to catch the two Synchronized partners off guard.

"Wow..." Bonnie exclaimed with stars in her eyes. "Aren't you glad you decided to travel with us, Squishy?"

The Zygarde core in her arms rolled its eye at the childish nickname, but couldn't dispute her question. _"I must admit, it was fortunate that I chose that particular rock to rest on, of all places. Perhaps this way I can gain the strength that I need…"_

Of course, since Bonnie was neither Psychic nor an Aura adept like her two friends (and it was _still_ hard to believe that they had actually gotten together while stuck inside a computer game), all she heard was a gurgling warble. "I knew you'd say that…" she giggled, poking the ticklish spot on its stomach.

"Now, now, Bonnie," Clemont lectured her from over next to the camp stove where he was cooking dinner. "Remember what Dad told us: don't tickle anybody if you're not willing to be tickled yourself. Oh, and Serena?"

Serena took her attention away from the fight briefly. "Yeah?"

"That thing about getting a cold from being cold and wet – it's just an old wives' tale with almost no grounding in scientific fact."

A small pout made its way onto Serena's face. "Yeah, but still, I –"

She doubled over, wincing, as a flash of pain shot through her head, accompanied by a series of images.

 _Ash tossing and turning in his sleeping bag, his face flushed bright red_

 _A Pokémart pharmacy counter, Clemont and Bonnie speaking worriedly to the clerk_

 _A pair of hands reaching down resolutely to pick up Ash's neatly-folded clothing_

 _Pikachu concentrating intently as he stared down his opponent_

 _Team Rocket – dressed up as pop stars?_

"…Serena! Serena, are you okay?" A pair of arms had encircled her while she was out of sorts, and she looked up to see a (shockingly dry) Ash staring at her worriedly. "I tried to figure out what was wrong, but it felt like you had put up a wall around your mind."

"Ugh… Now I know how Olympia felt." she moaned, leaning on him gratefully. He attempted to send her an energy boost, but she stopped him. "No, don't. I can tell you're exhausted yourself – you were out there battling for nearly an hour, and we don't need you getting sick because you stressed your Aura past its limit."

A traitorous thought wormed its way into her mind. _But what if that's what's_ _ **supposed**_ _to happen? After all, he was sick in your vision…_

 _Shut up_ , she told herself in an attempt to quell the idea. "You guys eat; I'm going to go to bed early. See you in the morning." _This way, he doesn't have to be a self-sacrificing hero and everything will be just fine._

 _Aww, but isn't the whole 'self-sacrificing hero' shtick one of the things you love about him?_ the voice mocked. _Plus, you just Jynx-ed it_. Oddly enough, her internal monologue then took on a slightly more philosophical tone. _Why that saying involves an Ice-type rather than the Pokémon known for its connection to disasters, I have no idea…_

Serena growled as loudly as she mentally could. _I said SHUT UP!_ She snuggled into her sleeping bag, still in her day outfit, and fell asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow – blissfully unaware that she had just enabled the vision to fulfil itself.

* * *

"…Is she gonna be okay?" Bonnie questioned as the remainder of the group ate their food, glancing frequently towards the tent her surrogate older sister was currently asleep in. "Olympia didn't fall asleep after that seeing-the-future thing when it happened to her, so why did it happen to Serena?"

Clemont ladled more noodles into his bowl. "You have to keep in mind that this is the first time Serena's ever gone through something like this – but based on what Professor Sycamore said, Olympia's been having visions like that for quite some time. It's kind of like learning to roller-skate: if you're unprepared and you're not used to wearing skates, your feet hurt once you finish, but once you've done it for a while it's not quite so bad."

Bonnie grinned slyly. "Speaking from experience, are we? Don't think I haven't noticed you disappearing early in the morning when we stay at a Pokémon Center…"

A torrent of noodles and broth spewed out of Clemont's mouth, slamming into a small Aura barrier and sliding down onto the table with an exaggerated squeaking noise. "Bonnie! How many times do I have to tell you, _I don't need you trying to interfere with my love life!_ "

Unfortunately, his response landed him right into Bonnie's trap. "I never said anything about finding you a keeper, did I? You made that assumption yourself. Something you want to tell us?"

Clemont waved his hands frantically, glasses turning opaque. "It's not like that at all! I'm working on the prototype for a pair of skates that use solar energy to hover using compressed air, and I need to iron out all the kinks before I can do anything else!" A small smile made its way onto his face. "And skating does kind of grow on you after a while…"

Bonnie refused to let up. "And what are you calling them? The 'Specially for Korrina All-Terrain Energy Skates'?"

Steam was now rising from her brother's ears. "No matter how appropriate that acronym sounds, I do not appreciate what you're using it to insinuate! Besides, Ash and Serena were able to get together without you pushing them – what makes you so sure that I can't find someone without your help too? Don't you remember Lillia a couple of days ago?"

"What I remember is that _you_ turned _her_ down." the blond girl deadpanned. "Something about 'too similar' and 'too sedentary' to really fit you…"

As the siblings went through their usual argument, Ash simply ate his food mechanically. While Clemont's statement about Olympia had reassured him slightly, he still couldn't help but worry about Serena. With the majority of her energy having been sapped by the vision, her mind seemed like an old recreational facility that had been disconnected from any sort of power source – the different 'rooms' devoted to her various pastimes all dark and gloomy.

The only source of light he could sense within took the form of a glowing coal: concentrated enough that it would be able to slowly rekindle a blaze, but dim enough that it could just as easily be snuffed out. He pulled back into his own mind, running through a back-of-the-envelope calculation to see how much Aura he could spare based on how long his fight had continued. Factoring in the energy from the food he had just eaten, he figured he should _just_ be able to restore her to health without going beneath his own critical limit.

He excused himself from the table, nodding his thanks when Greninja took his dishes for him, and walked over to Serena and Bonnie's tent. Taking the sleeping girl's hand in his, he pulsed his Aura through towards her core. When he felt her breathing hitch and her grip tighten, indicating that she had passed some kind of threshold, he broke off the connection and brushed a loose strand of hair off her face. "Sleep tight, Serena." he told her, grazing her forehead with his lips. "I'll see you tomorrow."

In this situation, it would not be completely out of line to blame Bonnie for what happened next. When she had prompted her brother to perform a spit-take, it caused Ash to instinctively throw up an Aura barrier to protect himself – one that he had not factored into his calculations when deciding whether or not to try and accelerate Serena's recovery. When that was combined with the burst he had used to dry his clothes (also not considered), it pushed his Aura below its critical limit, placing him in the exact same scenario from which he had just rescued Serena.

Entirely unaware of this, Ash changed into his pajamas and went to bed. _I'm glad she's okay now_ … he thought as he drifted off to sleep. _Maybe tomorrow she can actually tell us what she saw._

* * *

At about 7:30 the next morning, Serena's eyes shot open sharply. _Wow, I feel great! I knew Ash didn't need to bother helping me – a good night's sleep was all I needed._ She crept out of her sleeping bag, careful not to wake up Bonnie, and spent a few minutes jogging around the edge of camp to try and burn off some excess energy.

After that, she went through her daily meditation exercises, diving into her mental landscape and ensuring that all portions of it seemed to be running smoothly while simultaneously brushing all three of her Pokémon's hair/fur. She stopped for a moment next to the door signifying her connection with Ash, but given what happened in Fennas Imlad when she tried to touch his mind while he was asleep, she ultimately left it closed.

When she finished and opened her eyes, Clemont was busy preparing to cook breakfast for the group. "Oh – thanks!" she told him. "I was actually just about to do that myself…"

The blond-haired inventor nodded in acknowledgement. "Thank you for your appreciation. If you still want to help, you can make sure Bonnie is awake and up, okay?"

Serena glanced briefly at the boys' tent, where Ash was still sleeping. "All right, sure."

About halfway to her own shared tent, she was stopped by Clemont's next comment. "She sure seems a lot better this morning than she did last night… I wonder what that vision she had was about."

 _Didn't they see for themselves?_ she wondered, recalling their experience in Anistar City. _Oh wait, we were in a room designed for mental-image projection back then. I'll have to tell them at breakfast…_

Breakfast came and went, but the tent showed no signs of Ash stirring. At first they thought he was having one of his random 'sleep-incredibly-late' days, but when even the smell of food right outside the zipper didn't rouse him, his companions began to worry.

Especially Serena, given the content of her vision the evening before. _He didn't, did he…? I mean, that would explain why I recovered so quickly – but I specifically told him_ _ **not**_ _to do that!_

She was interrupted from her thoughts by a wave of shock that passed through the Rosenfeld siblings, and instinctively glanced over to see Clemont's ahoge quivering like an antenna as his glasses whited out. Following his gaze, she looked over at his tent – only to see a semi-transparent Ash stumbling _through_ the solid fabric of the tent without damaging it. She instinctively reached out to his mind, only to feel a nebulous cloud of indiscernible concepts ranging from _survive_ to _protect_ to _anchor_ to _love_ with many others in between.

Almost as soon as she made the connection, the translucent Ash jerked to a wobbly stop and appeared to solidify slightly. "Serena…" he mumbled, adjusting his path to intercept her.

She quickly got up from her seat and ran over to him, her nervousness kicking into overdrive when she saw how flushed his face appeared. _Oh no. This is exactly what I was afraid of…_

A ghostly hand gripped her arm, and she felt her energy drain slightly as a now completely solid Ash dropped to his knees in front of her, rambling incoherently. "You're the only reason I'm alive…" he told her, the statement sandwiched between a series of mumbles that included the words 'Aaron,' 'tree,' and 'Lucario.' Bonnie, of course, couldn't help but let out a squee, causing the cloud in his mindscape to shift slightly. "You're a keeper… I choose you!"

Bonnie's squeal got louder (if that was even possible). "You heard that, right Serena? You know what that means?"

If not for how deeply Ash and Serena could understand each other's mutual feelings, the Performer might have assumed that she was dreaming. As it was, however, she recognized what was going on and responded using the rational part of her brain. "Yes, I do. It means that his brain doesn't have the energy to filter between his emotions and his words, and I'd much rather have him be thinking rationally when he decides to say anything 'officially'. For now, what he needs is rest and medicine. You and Clemont should be able to find it in the Pokémart pharmacy over in the closest town."

Her statement only confused Bonnie. "Hold on – how is medicine supposed to help with Ash being all ghost-y?"

"I don't know, but if Ash being sick like this is any indication, that's where you're going to need to get it."

Clemont nodded in understanding. "Oh, I see. Last night, one of the things you saw must have been Ash sick in bed – and the other thing must have been us getting the medicine! Do you remember which one it was?"

Serena ran through the image again, concentrating on picking out that detail. "I think it was in a small blue-and-yellow box, in between a red one and a green one."

"Got it. Do you mind if we borrow your tablet to guide us there?"

With a wave of her hand, her tablet flew through the air and landed in Clemont's grasp. "Here, now get going! I'm gonna get Ash back to bed."

"Yes ma'am, General Serena!" Bonnie saluted cheekily before striding off back downriver, towards the town they had passed by the day before.

"Bonnie, wait for me…" Clemont protested, hurriedly grabbing his backpack and running to catch up with her.

* * *

Thankfully, Serena's presence at his bedside appeared to be enough to stave off Ash's bouts of intangibility – at least temporarily. Pancham and Sylveon took it upon themselves to ensure that their Trainer always had a full container of water with which to bathe his brow, while Braixen took the time to reassure Greninja that Ash's predicament wasn't his fault.

The amphibious ninja sighed. _"I know that up_ _ **here**_ _, but just because I know something doesn't mean I believe it."_ he said, tapping his head as he did so.

 _"I totally get where you're coming from."_ she consoled him, running her paws soothingly over his scalp. _"Back when Serena lost her first showcase, I was convinced that it was entirely my fault for tripping on the ribbon – and even after she told me that she was just as responsible, I refused to admit that she was telling the truth. But you know what I've learned since then?"_

 _"What?"_

 _"BELIEVE IT! Even if you share your Trainer's penchant for trying to save people, it doesn't mean you have to beat yourself up for failing to prevent a situation you had no control over."_

His spirits slightly lifted, Greninja gave Braixen a thankful hug. _"You know, I'm really glad that our Trainers decided to travel together. Aren't you?"_

Before she could respond, though, the clearing where they were camped was flooded with vaguely musical-sounding noise. Greninja winced, feeling a short pulse of transmitted annoyance through two daisy-chained, semi-dormant bonds. _"Aaaand, that's torn it."_

Sure enough, Braixen's fledgling Psychic potential (normally latent until the Delphox stage, but brought out by having a Trainer with similar abilities) was able to detect a sound-muffling field spring into being around the tent – and then around the amplifier built into the newcomer's backpack – before Serena emerged and began telling him off severely. If not for the dangerous aura Serena was emitting, the boy's reactions to his sound shutting off would have been almost comical.

 **"Do you have** ** _any_** **idea what you almost did?"** her voice hissed in a quiet yet commanding tone, bringing his frantic knob adjustments to a stop. **"There is a** ** _critically sick person_** **in the tent behind me, in bad enough condition that moving him would be almost impossible, and he** ** _needs_** **to remain asleep if he is going to recover."**

Indeed, Serena's agitation was slowly leaking through the cracks in her mental doorframe, causing Ash to start thrashing around in his sleep, and his face began to slightly shimmer again.

* * *

 ** _Stage 1: Complete._**

* * *

Without his obnoxious 'music' backing him up, the boy seemed much less sure of himself. "But… but they told me I could find a 'twerp with a Pikachu' here – they didn't say anything about someone sick!"

 _They? Who… oh, please no._ "Would 'they' happen to be a blue-haired man, a red-haired woman, and a talking Meowth?" she questioned with a tension in her voice that belied its sweet tone.

"Come to think of it, yeah." he responded, re-holstering his guitar on the side of his backpack. "Why, do you know them?"

Serena sighed. "Our traveling group runs into them once every few days, and they've been following Ash around for years trying to steal his Pikachu. They claim to be part of a gang called 'Team Rocket,' but they seem to care more about the _attempts_ to catch him than they would if they actually succeeded, or else they wouldn't leave so many obvious flaws in their plans. Honestly, it'd feel odd if we _didn't_ run into them – and that's saying something, considering how many crazy adventures we get up to…"

The boy didn't miss the way her eyes flicked over towards the tent as she mentioned Ash, but he completely misinterpreted her gesture. "So I'm guessing this 'Ash' is in taking care of your sick friend right now? Sorry if it sounds rude, but Spike and I _really_ wanna battle him and his Pikachu right now. It's kind of our thing, and once we hear about a Trainer with a strong Pikachu we just can't sit still! Would it be okay if he switched places with you and battled me while you took care of your friend? Please?"

Serena was about to refuse, when a thought struck her. The person she was talking to right now based his image around music – and he had been sent over by Team Rocket, _who had been wearing music-themed disguises in her vision_. With the way events had been turning out that day, she couldn't make any decisions rashly.

The third and fourth images then flashed through her mind, and the seed of an idea took root. "I'll see what I can do." she told the boy, walking over to the tent and lifting the 'hatch' just far enough for her to enter.

* * *

Greninja and Braixen were waiting for her inside, staring worriedly at Ash. The black-haired Trainer had finally stopped thrashing, but the translucence of his appearance had not yet vanished again. As soon as she registered that fact, the potential repercussions of her crazy plan hit her with the force of a rampaging Tauros.

 _I completely forgot – if I'm not there, Ash starts disappearing! But if he's not recovered, and I can't leave his side without putting him in danger, why do I remember seeing my_ own _hands grabbing his clothing as if to put it on?_

Pikachu's voice interrupted her as he squeezed through the tiny gap in the entryway. _"You were thinking about trying to battle Jimmy in Pikapi's place, weren't you? Honestly, I wouldn't mind if you did – I've gotta get rid of this nervous energy somehow, and a fellow Electric-type like Spike out there would be less prone to damage."_

He then noticed Ash fading back into solidity and facepalmed. _"Oh yeah, that."_ A puzzled look appeared on his face. _"I wonder why expending too much Aura seems to have different results when in battle versus trying to heal someone. I mean, all those times he exhausted himself during training nothing happened – but I remember Lucario stopping Ash back at the Tree of Beginning before this could happen to him. So why is it different?"_

Greninja interrupted him. _"Wait, are you saying you've seen this happen before?"_

 _"Yeah, but Sir Aaron and his Lucario just faded; they didn't halfway fade and then become solid again when a specific person came… near…"_

It appeared Greninja had soon reached the same conclusion as Pikachu, considering Ash's earlier words. _"You think it has something to do with their bond acting as an anchor, right?"_

 _"Yeah, but – oh, I see where you're going with this…"_

Greninja focused inwards, locating the Synchronization Bond that he had formed with Ash as a result of evolution, Aura, and his Protean adaptability blending together, and _changed_. Since only one of the two parties was contributing to his transformation, the size of the resulting water veil and Water Shuriken was much smaller than usual – but that didn't matter. All that mattered was the fact that Ash now had _two_ anchors to the physical world, allowing one to be safely withdrawn.

 _"There, it shouldn't be a problem now. Just keep in mind: he wanted to battle Ash, so battle as_ he _would and not as_ you _would."_

 _"Are you kidding?"_ Pikachu snarked. _"They battle almost exactly the same way nowadays, so that advice is pretty much useless."_

 _"…Touché."_

Serena tuned them out, shrouding herself in a Notice-Me-Not for modesty's sake and picking up Ash's folded clothing. _Get well soon, Ash. I'll fight for you until you do._

* * *

 ** _Stage 3: Complete._**

* * *

After the girl with the imposing voice had gone into the tent to retrieve his newest opponent, Jimmy the Pikachu trainer sighed with a mixture of relief and admiration. "Did ya feel that, Spike? She's the kind of person ya know not to mess with if you can help it – and if Ash has been traveling for longer than she has like it sounded, then I get the feeling our next battle's gonna be turned up to eleven!"

 _"Bring it!"_ Spike cheered, pumping his fist adorably. _"The stronger the Pikachu, the more epic our show's finale!"_

Jimmy, who had just turned his volume down to what he thought the girl and her friends would consider reasonable, chuckled in agreement with Spike's attitude and strummed a chord. "Aww yeah, don'tcha know it!"

His thoughts were interrupted when he saw a figure dressed in blue and red emerge from the tent. _Something seems a bit off-key…_ he thought, his brain automatically supplying the most relevant memory. A couple of weeks back, he had come across a Trainer with an odd Pikachu – who he, naturally, decided to challenge. About halfway through the battle, though, he and Spike finally landed a hit only to find out that they had been fighting a Zorua all along.

He quickly dismissed the thought, though. _That girl I talked to said those guys from this morning have been after this Pikachu for years, so I think they would have noticed the dissonance if it was really a Zorua._

"So," his opponent said, coming to a stop one battlefield-length away. "I heard you want to challenge Pikachu, huh?"

Jimmy gave an anticipatory smile in return. "Not just challenge. My name's Jimmy, and Spike and I have been collaborating for so long that nothing can drown out the harmony of our battles! We're here to kick you and your Pikachu off the stage, so c'mon! Show us what you can do as a duet!"

Serena, who was currently holding a mental image of Ash that mirrored her actions and believing as hard as she could that anyone who looked at her would see and hear it instead of her, somehow managed to find the capacity to sweatdrop. Ignoring it, she answered back, "Then in the name of Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town, Pikachu and I accept your challenge!"

Jimmy's smile grew, to the point where his teeth were no longer concealed. "Let the show begin!" As the two Pikachu took their places on the field, he accompanied their standoff with a cover of the Pokémon League's 'Intro to a Televised Battle' riff. The League usually accompanied said riff with a 'Versus' splash screen, but he knew he couldn't expect that much. After all, what would the chances be for that kind of screen to show up in reality?

 _Battle: Pikachu Trainer Jimmy vs. Satoshi Stand-In Serena!_

If any of those present could have seen past the fourth wall, they would have facepalmed at the contrived irony. As it was, however, the Trainers and their partners stared each other down confidently – as if waiting for an unspoken signal to begin the fight.

* * *

 ** _Stage 4: Complete._**

* * *

The battle began as many battles do: with a reserved attack meant to gauge the opponent's strength, so that you knew what you were up against. In this case, both Trainers called for a Quick Attack, and each Pikachu darted forwards at high speed, zigzagging back and forth in short bursts in an attempt to intercept the other from the side rather than head-on. Each of them put considerable strength behind their attempt, but Ash's Pikachu (if not both) held back slightly in order to see what the other side could do.

The whole time, Jimmy kept playing his guitar – and there was _something_ about it that seemed odd to Serena, but she was too focused on watching Spike to analyze it immediately. She did file the sequence in her short-term memory, though, just in case it turned out to be significant later on. As she did, the two Pikachu collided head-on, applying the force of impact directly to their foreheads.

They sprang back relatively unharmed, and Ash's Pikachu smirked teasingly. _"Heh. I guess all your headbanging didn't go to waste after all."_

Spike didn't take too kindly to the implications of Pikachu's trash talk. _"Hey, don't diss the dance!"_ he shot back as Jimmy broke off his shredding to perform a series of short, sharp strums. He leapt up in the air with electricity crackling on his fist. _"Now let's see how you can handle a Spiked punch!"_

A blade of grass in front of Pikachu jerked slightly to the right, glowing with a blue outline, and he stepped nonchalantly to that side as Spike's Thunderpunch impacted the ground right next to him. _"How does mixing alcohol into a communal drink at a fancy party fit with the whole 'band performance' thing you guys have going on?"_ he asked, loping over to Jimmy's side of the field and charging up a Thunderbolt.

 _"It… it doesn't."_ Spike admitted drooping slightly. _"I just always wanted to make that joke, and – HEY, stop trying to distract me!"_

Jimmy grinned, changing a dial on his guitar. "I see that wordless harmonies have made it into your Top Hits, too! But now that you've handled mainstream tactics, let's see how you do against _underground!_ " The sound emerging from his amplifier changed from the (relatively) clean tones he had started with to a much more _muddy_ tone as Spike Dug his way beneath the surface by spinning his tail.

Pikachu's Thunderbolt just barely missed Jimmy's Pokémon as it vanished underground, and he looked to Serena for instructions. In response, she flicked her eyes toward Jimmy's guitar and whistled softly while twitching a blade of grass that was resting between her fingers. Once she had heard that Jimmy and Spike were communicating silently, the last piece of the puzzle _click_ ed into place, and she realized that their communication was actually anything _but_ silent.

Obviously, the rapid-fire licks that he had begun with signified the speed of Quick Attack and the short bursts were meant to represent a short, sharp impact like a (Thunder)punch – but there was more to it than that. With the benefit of hindsight, she was able to determine that each pattern was based around a central note range, and that different variations in pitch corresponded to different directions. For instance, playing just above that central range corresponded to Spike making a right turn, while the next interval up signified _straight forward_. The same was true of 'left' and 'backwards,' which meant all you had to do to predict Spike's location was to listen to Jimmy's music.

(As she communicated this information to Pikachu, the part of her brain that understood musical theory absently noted that, with _much_ more practice, there was an even _more_ versatile music strategy that Jimmy and Spike might be able to use in the future. After all, to go through an entire octave in half-steps required twelve different tones – the same as the digits on a standard clock. At the beginning of each match, the Trainer would pick a specific base note corresponding to _1_ , and the specific semitone would communicate his or her desired direction relative to 12:00, or _forward_. Of course, her brain also deliberately forgot to mention that getting both Jimmy and Spike to that level of coordination would take years at the least, probably well beyond his attention span.)

Now armed with the knowledge of his opponent's strategy, Pikachu began dashing pseudo-randomly across the field as if trying to avoid an invisible opponent. Jimmy and Spike, believing that they had caught Pikachu and Ash off guard, were too psyched up to realize that whenever the two Pikachu came near each other, Pikachu's path just _happened_ to make them overshoot each other by the barest margin, and the ground beneath the field eventually became filled with a honeycombing series of tunnels.

 _Just a little more, and… there!_ "Now, Pikachu – use Earthquake!" Serena instructed, causing Jimmy to freeze in shock.

"Wait a minute, your Pikachu knows _Earthquake?_ " he wondered out loud as Pikachu jumped in the air, the shock of Serena's words enough to jar him out of his, um…

 ** _…his particular idiom, Sir?_**

 **Right. Now shut up.**

…out of his particular idiom and distract him from instructing Spike to dodge.

Serena shrugged. "It's just the ground shaking – it's not terribly hard to fake."

An Iron Tail from Pikachu sent a series of tremors through the weakened soil, collapsing the network of tunnels and (somehow) launching Spike straight up into the air. Using the leftover elastic energy of the bent steel, Pikachu then sprung up after Spike and Slammed him down to the ground with his still-hard tail.

As Spike got back to his feet, Jimmy smiled so wide his molars were visible. "Aw, yeah! This is my kinda jam!" He happened to glance past Serena and saw Clemont and Bonnie emerging from the forest. "Cool, it looks like we've got an audience now too!"

"What?" Serena looked back to see the Rosenfeld siblings, attempting to project _give Ash the medicine, ignore the battle outside_ to them as soon as she realized who it was. "Oh, they actually just got back with the medicine for A- I mean, our sick friend!" she corrected herself, having almost revealed the ploy. "Would you mind just battling Pikachu by himself while I go check on them? He almost doesn't even need instructions to fight after traveling for this long."

Jimmy stroked his chin thoughtfully. "A solo act, eh? Sure, why not? Every good musician knows that you can do more with a solid crew behind you – just make sure you come back before the finale!"

"Right!" With a nod, Serena dashed off toward the tent, leaving Pikachu to face off Jimmy and Spike alone.

A glint of metal in the woods caught Pikachu's eye, and he looked over (under the pretense of circling the battlefield warily) to see patches of rubber and metal poking through the foliage. _Standard Team Rocket trap, eh?_ he mused, dashing forward to meet Spike's Quick Attack with one of his own. _I wonder what sort of disguises those clowns are wearing today…_

* * *

Over inside their truck, James sneezed while adjusting his wig. "Stupid comedy gag," he grumbled, looking down at the mucus coating his shirt. "I was hoping I _wouldn't_ have to wear that purple outfit with all the sequins…"

 ** _Stage 5: Complete._**

* * *

Serena crawled in under the opening in the tent's doorway, hoping frantically that Clemont and Bonnie had gotten the correct medicine. "Did you find it? I hope I didn't give you the wrong instructions, or else you would have gone all that way for no reason –"

"Um, Serena?" Clemont interrupted, stopping her before she tripped over (the now-awake!) Ash's legs. "We kind of _did_ go all that way for no reason."

Serena's brain froze in shock. "Huh? But what went wrong? I told you exactly what I saw!"

Clemont nodded. "That's right, you did. But when we got back and headed into the tent to give Ash the medicine, he was sitting up and talking to Greninja as if nothing was wrong. And look at the label on the box you told us to get."

She looked at it, but couldn't figure out what he was trying to point out. "Sorry, but I don't know all those scientific words like you do." she apologized. "What's wrong with it?"

 _"Polymaltosic trehalose,"_ he read aloud from the label. "They're placeboes – nothing but sugar pills with a scientific-sounding name."

"But… but then why did I see you buying it in the vision last night?"

Ash put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. "Maybe it was to get them away from the camp when the guy who wanted to challenge me showed up. After all, if they were here, you wouldn't have tried to fill in for me, and then Greninja wouldn't have thought of trying to use _his_ bond to help stabilize me, and then I would have been asleep for another day at the least, maybe even a week. Thanks for filling in while I was asleep, by the way."

Serena opened her mouth, intending to protest, but closed it again when she realized that Ash's explanation made the same sort of _weird, convoluted_ sense as his entire life. The cherry on top would be if Team Rocket randomly barged in to try and grab Pikachu –

 _– who was outside, battling unsupervised right now –_

The sound of screeching tires echoed past Serena's now-fallen audio barrier, followed by a horrendous attempt at turning the Team Rocket motto into a rap song (over an admittedly catchy beat), and she let her head _thump_ onto Ash's shoulder. _"Why!?"_ she groaned, before remembering the final scene of her vision and attempting to kill several more brain cells.

Ash's hand stopped her. "Um, if it's all the same to you, I'd rather you not hurt yourself. Plus, you're kinda wearing my clothing and I'd rather not fight Team Rocket in my pajamas."

Oddly enough, that statement was somehow enough to restore her composure. "You're right," she admitted, Summoning her clothes and applying a 'Modesty Charm' to each of them as Clemont and Bonnie exited the tent. "And we'd better hurry up – I don't think they can stretch out their motto any longer than twenty-five more seconds."

Ash nodded. "Yep, best not to let music suffer any longer than absolutely necessary." A telekinetic pulse swatted at his hair, and he reflexively reached up to brush at it. "Hey! I was just saying what I knew we were both thinking…"

"Doofus." Serena said fondly, doffing her own signature hat. "You ready to go watch Team Rocket humiliate themselves again?"

Ash shrugged on his jacket, extended his hand, and grinned. "I thought you'd never ask."

* * *

 _"…Blasting off at supersonic, luminary speeds!"_

 _"If you can't stand the fight, then get down on your knees!"_

 _"And take it from Meowth right here, dis ain't an idle threat. So put ya' dukes up right now, 'cause dat's all da grace ya get!"_

"You know, you should really research your rhymes better before trying to convert your motto into a song." Ash called out snarkily as they approached. "Mom, or should I say 'Mum,' always told me that 'put your dukes up' meant 'get ready to fight,' not 'surrender.' Plus, your accent sounds nothing like the guys – sorry, 'blokes' – I heard saying it on the telly when I was naught but a wee lad."

Left unsaid was the fact that he himself was deliberately mangling said accent to give Team Rocket a taste of their own medicine.

Meowth, however, completely missed the point. "Oi, does either of youse two know what da twoip's talkin' about?" he asked his teammates suspiciously.

"It doesn't matter either way!" Jessie answered in the tone of someone who believes themselves superior to everyone else. "What matters is that we've got two Pikachu and they don't!"

"That's right!" James encouraged him. "You've gotta keep the positives in mind so that the negatives won't bring you down!"

At that instant, a metaphorical lightbulb lit up above Pikachu's head. _"Hey, Spike. How good are you at controlling your electricity?"_

Spike abandoned his struggles against the rubberized hand holding him temporarily. _"I'm not a pro, but I wouldn't say I'm an amateur either. Why, is this some kind of improve number?"_

 _"You'll see. For now, try and split your electricity into two Thunderpunches of opposite polarity."_ As Spike did so, Pikachu ran through the beginning stages of forming an Electro Ball, channeling electricity into his tail. Instead of releasing it, though, he concentrated the charge _within_ the appendage, swinging it as far as he could in Spike's direction.

After a couple of swings, his tail stopped moving while pointed in Spike's direction, and he grinned. _Got it!_ As quickly as he could, he reversed the charge, pushing himself in the opposite direction and then swinging an Iron Tail to gain himself momentum. Once the arm holding him had reached the apex of its motion, he reversed the charge _again_ , this time aiding the elastic rebound of the mechanical construct as it pushed him back towards equilibrium.

When he reached said equilibrium point, though, he and the arm still possessed momentum in the direction of Spike, allowing them to get even closer together. The Coulombic repulsion when he reversed the charge a _third_ time was then even higher, and another iteration of the process allowed him to get close enough to shatter the arm holding Spike with an Iron Tail. _"Grab on!"_ he yelled as Spike passed near his still-extended tail, swinging it in an arc and launching his fellow Pikachu into the air above them. _"Now Dig, and aim for the arm!"_

Spinning like a drill, Jimmy's Pikachu descended on the Steel appendage with the energy of a Ground-type move behind him. Being the same standard quality as all of Team Rocket's machines, it was destroyed almost immediately, and the two Pikachu landed on top of Team Rocket's truck behind the obnoxiously-bright backdrop, no longer restrained.

The whole process had taken little more than five seconds.

"What was that you were saying earlier, again?" Ash interrupted Jessie, having seen the escape taking place behind her back. "Something about you guys having our Pikachu?"

The red-haired woman scoffed. "Have you not been listening this entire time? We caught them in electricity-proofed traps that we knew they couldn't reach with their other attacks, and none of you twerps have done anything to rescue them!"

"Um, Jessie?"

Jessie ignored her teammate in favor of gloating. "We even coated them with Inkay's ink to stop your twerpette girlfriend from doing anything behind our backs, so there's nothing you can do to rescue them without us seeing!"

"You know, there _is_ a technique called Miracle Eye, right? Besides, they seem to have done just fine on their own."

"WHAT?!" Jessie whirled to look, only to see the decapitated appendages swaying back and forth in the wind.

James nodded sadly. "I was trying to tell you, Jess. They somehow managed to escape by themselves."

Meowth sighed. "I t'ink we all know what dis means…"

Almost on cue, a double Thunderbolt hit them from behind, sending them flying off through the air. "WE'RE BL–"

A spherical shimmer of artificially stagnant air appeared around them briefly, cutting off any sound from getting past, and Serena sighed in relief. "Thank goodness that worked. It gets kind of annoying to hear them yell that over and over every time we meet them." She then glanced over at Jimmy. "Sorry about doing that to your guitar earlier too. I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't wake Ash up."

Jimmy paused his reunion with Spike to look at her in confusion. "Hold on, wasn't Ash just out here battling me? If that wasn't him, then who was it?"

Serena concentrated for a moment, and for a couple of seconds Jimmy almost _swore_ he was seeing double – but then he noticed that one Ash was wearing the exact same clothes as Serena, and then the image faded to reveal that it was, in fact, her. "I never _actually_ said I was getting Ash, did I?" She winked playfully, draping an arm over Ash's shoulders and sticking out the tip of her tongue for good measure. "And I wouldn't have done it if he didn't desperately need his beauty sleep, or if he or Pikachu would have disagreed."

"She's right." Ash said, scratching the back of his neck as his cheeks flushed slightly. "Serena knows me well enough that battling her and Pikachu is almost no different than if it was me and him battling. If you'd still rather fight against me, though…"

The guitarist thought it over for a couple of seconds before shaking his head. "Nah. As long as Spike and I can feel the melody your Pikachu fights to, it doesn't really matter which of the two other notes of the chord back him up. Either way, it forms a rockin' harmony!"

His musical analogy was then interrupted by one of a select few notes that is almost always discordant: the sound of Ash's growling stomach. (Other bodily noises that adolescent males often consider humorous could have fit the criteria, but as no portion of his intestinal tract contained pockets of trapped gas, such gastrointestinal emissions shall remain unnamed.)

Ash chuckled nervously. "Sorry about that. I haven't eaten since yesterday." An idea occurred to him, and he snapped his fingers. "You know what, you should join us for lunch – unless it's closer to suppertime, in which case just call it supper instead. It's the least we can do for tricking you like that."

After a few seconds of the live elevator music that accompanied Jimmy's thoughts, he grinned, making his impending acceptance clear. "You mean I get dinner to go with the show? When you put it like that, how can an artist like me say no?"

 _"The same way you would say anything else: with your mouth."_ Pikachu snarked, causing Spike to snort in amusement.

 _"All right, I'll give you that one."_

 _"Oh? You mean the same way I gave you all those openings earlier during our fight?"_ Pikachu teased as he hopped up on top of Ash's head (his shoulders still being claimed by Serena's arm).

 _"Please – against a masterpiece of choreography like ours, there's no way you couldn't have made a misstep!"_

 _"Keep telling yourself that…"_

 **"The sun sets on our heroes after another long day, as Ash replenishes his strength by devouring all food… in… sight.** (The narrator stumbled over this sentence, unused to closing out an adventure in such a fashion, but pushed on anyways.) **Jimmy and his Pikachu Spike, having long since finished their own dinner, depart to continue their own musical quest, and Snowbelle City is just around the corner! Who knows what adventures await Ash and his friends once they arrive? Perhaps nobody, but there is only one way for them to find out.**

 **…as the journey continues!"**

* * *

Omake: Beware the Lemon-Haired Narrator

* * *

"…And that's how your grandpa proposed to your grandma." the storyteller finished, closing the featureless book she held. A set of wide eyes gazed back at her in awe, the children sitting in front of her transfixed by her story.

All except one, that is. "That's not how the story went!" she protested. "I heard what you said in the story about wanting Ash to 'think rationally' when he proposed!"

"She's right, Aunt Bonnie!" the boy sitting next to her piped up. "We all heard it too!"

The woman in front of them sighed. "You never let me have any fun, do you?" She set down the book next to her. "Fine, that's not how he asked me." Her features faded to reveal a somewhat older face and hair of a different shade of blonde. At the same time, the 'child protester' wavered slightly before reassuming the appearance that Serena formerly had. "Honestly, Bonnie, did you have to give it away so soon?"

The current Lumiose Gym leader grinned teasingly as her grand-nieces and –nephews swarmed her step-sister. "Why yes. Yes, I did."


End file.
